The Firing Squad

Summary: A young man is faced with the harsh reality of executing a shell shocked friend.

Short Story

Gord Giles, age fifteen — though he had told the recruitment
office he was eighteen — stood knee deep in muddy water, a rifle resting
against his shoulder. Ayden Tracy, fellow private and nineteen years old, stood
next to him, his brow lowered underneath his helmet. They weren't sure what
they were doing. Earlier that morning, Lieutenant McReynolds had dragged them
out of bed and told them to stand there. In their sleep drugged minds, they
hadn't questioned it. Now that the freezing cold mud was seeping into their
trousers, they were having second thoughts.

In the middle of the stillness, a dark shape flew up out of
the corner of Gord's vision. Instinctively, he fired at it. The fog in his
brain evaporated. There we go. The
dark shape exploded as the bullet hit. It had been a clod of dirt.

Slow applause echoed out from around the corner of the
trench. Lieutenant McReynolds, clapping, sloshed across the boggy ground toward
them. He was grinning from ear to ear. “Well done, Giles!”

Ayden relaxed his stiff posture. “Did you wake us up just to
see if Gord could hit a moving target in the dark?”

The lieutenant clapped Gord on the shoulder. “Good lad! That
was impressive!”

“Thank you, sir.” Gord drummed his fingers against the gun
and tried to smile back. It had been
impressive. He was sleep deprived, it was pitch black and he’d shot a moving
target that was essentially the same color as its surroundings. He just wished
he'd been allowed to stay in his bunk, itchy and damp though it was.

The sky started to turn grey. Lieutenant McReynolds looked
up, as if expecting something. It wouldn't be clear. Days came and went without
direct sunlight. The three men quietly listened as the rest of the trench came
to life. Wherever people live, even in the middle of a war, the noises are
always the same: clinks, groans, feet shuffling and plodding.

“Where's Connor?” Ayden asked.

McReynolds's head swiveled around. His eyes were sharp
against his skin. They always appeared clean no matter how filthy the rest of
him got. “He's still in his bunk. Had a long watch last night.”

Gord nodded. Ayden grunted and climbed out of the bog onto
higher, but still wet, land. The unspoken passed between them, then became
swallowed up by the traditional squelch and bustle of the trench. Dalach
McReynolds stayed behind, his hands in his pockets and his head tilted towards
the sky.

Dear Angelica,

I hope you are doing
well. Is your mother faring alright?

I am still fighting
fit. The food continues to be awful, but there's not much I can do. Private
Tracy and Lt McReynolds have been fantastic mates. Lt McReynolds is full of
stories! I must remember to tell you one when I return.

Fondly,

Gord Giles

“Writing to your girl again, Giles?” Connor asked. He peered
over the younger man's shoulder, his face screwing up delight. The littlest
things made Connor happy, which was a good thing these days. Connor was just
brimming with joy and Gord thought that if someone got close enough, they could
actually feel it, like a faint buzz.

“That's sweet,” Ayden commented. He had paused in the middle
of rolling a cigarette. His thick eyebrows had tilted together in the middle.
“You plan on marrying her if you get back?”

“That’s the idea,” Gord muttered.

Ayden shrugged and lit his smoke. He raised it to his lips with
near grace. No one was better at looking apart than Private Ayden Tracy. Some
people are born with the gift of never quite becoming one of the pack. Gord had
always felt comforted by the presence of others whereas Tracy constantly looked
like he could do without it. And Connor
was something else altogether. He attracted people to him. Although, now...

A rap on one of the wooden supports alerted the three to the
presence of Dalach McReynolds, another magnet of a man. In fact, he had a
gravitational pull so strong that people said he once ended a bar fight between
strangers without raising a hand. Take him to the Germans, they said, and they
will lay down their weapons after they see him smile.

“Hello, lads,” he said, swaggering into the room. “What are
you up to here?”

“Just writing, sir,” Gord said, holding up the pen as
evidence.

“Ah, I see,” the lieutenant said with a wink. Gord flushed
to his ears. There were times when he wished he hadn't brought up Angelica at
all.

Of course, they'd all asked, long ago when he'd first joined
up and wrote his first letter to her. Is
she pretty? Handy with a needle? Kissed you goodbye? Yes, yes, no. Gord had
no idea what would happen if he tried to kiss Angelica. Girls like her shuffled
meekly to see you off without a lot of theatrics. Ayden had said she sounded
“wet” which had led to a fistfight, which in turn led to their current
friendship.

Dalach clapped his hands. “Alright then! Which of you has
watch tonight?”

Ayden and Connor both opened their mouths to protest but the
lieutenant gave them a hard look. Gord pretended to put the finishing touches on his
letter. This was about the last time Connor had taken a shift. They all tried
not to think about it, or even breathe about it.

“You're treating me as if I'm fine china!” Connor shouted.

“That's not it.”

“Then what is it?”

Gord tried to transport himself somewhere else. A field
perhaps, on a summer afternoon. A pheasant, a gun, a father. A shout of “Good
shot, lad!” Gord sighed. A good shot, a perfect shot.

Something shattered in the background. Gord couldn't ignore
it anymore. A small mirror had just been thrown across the room, smashing
against the wall. Connor grabbed his coat from the hook and stormed out.
Dalach, crouched on the floor, lowered his hands. The shards of glass had left
a few cuts, but they were minor.

Ayden dropped his cigarette, smashed it with his heel and
raced after Connor, barking his name. Gord got up and gathered the remains of
what had been a perfectly good shaving mirror. If he remembered correctly, it was Connor's.
He would be upset when he came back to himself later. If he came back.

Dalach sighed. “He's gotten worse.”

Gord nodded. There was a time when Connor had no quarrel
with anybody. There was a time when Connor was much happier and didn't cry in
the middle of the night and didn't hole up inside himself whenever he heard the
sound of an explosion.

Ayden reappeared at the door. “I couldn't catch him, but
he'll be back.” He sat himself down on his bunk and rolled another cigarette.
The scent of tobacco filled the room again. Dalach swept out. Gord returned to his
chair, folded his letter and placed it in an envelope. He'd give it to the post
master soon.

When they'd first met, Connor had been all smiles. He had a
young bride back home who was expecting their first baby. He told good jokes,
so good that he made a Sergeant Major laugh when he shouldn't have. He was a
quick thinker, light on his feet and brave, so very brave. He was a Corporal.

Gord remembered when there had been drinks and cards and
Gord had been so very bad at keeping a straight face, but Connor had given him
a lesson so that he wouldn't embarrass himself. Connor was also the first who
saw him shoot.

“You have promise,” he said. “But then again, who wants to
stay in the army?”

Gord thought that statement was strange until he was
actually on the front line. That had been before he knew about the wet and the
rats. Still, Connor had seemed so keen, even when he knew the truth.

Hell, he'd given Ayden a reason to smile.

This was all before they went over the top the first time.
Gord would never forget it. They'd lost over twenty men in the space of a few
minutes. As far as he'd heard, a mine was tripped and Connor had watched as a
young private was torn to bits by the blast. He wouldn't stop talking about it
afterward.

“And...and...it was like paper....” he'd muttered, swigging
down a whole bottle of gin. “Good Lord...I knew it was there and I told him...I
told him...”

Days passed with little talk of what had happened. Dalach
warned them not to speak of it. While they kept it under their hats, Connor
came apart at the seams. He lost his temper more and more easily. Gord received
a black eye by getting in between him and Ayden. On a watch, he disappeared
inside himself and wouldn't come back, even with Dalach screaming in his face
and shaking him so hard that they accidentally cracked Connor’s head against a
rock.

The lieutenant mentioned in passing a straw that broke the
camel's back, as if the incident with the mine had crushed the dam of sanity
inside Connor. And no matter how many fingers they jammed in the cracks, the
village had already been swept away.

It was only a matter of time before someone noticed. Gord
had no idea what would happen to Connor. Dalach used the word “shell shocked”
as if it explained something. No one knew anything about “shell shocked.” To
Gord it was akin to naming a storm or a shipwreck or a disastrous battle. One
needed to think of it in terms that you could control.

The army wasn't
supposed to be like this, Gord thought. Where was the glory?

“Lads, get up.”

Gord lifted his head. Dalach was standing in the doorway,
half silhouetted. Above him, Ayden stirred and mumbled out a bleary, “Sir?”

“Connor is...he's being held. They found him.”

The bunk creaked as Gord climbed out from underneath the
blanket. He dragged on his jacket. Ayden hopped into his boots without lacing
them. Gord could hear their hearts pounding, smell the nervous sweat that was
beginning to form on their skin.

“Where did they find him?” Ayden asked.

“Not sure, but he wasn't where he was supposed to be.”

The unspoken word “deserter” rang in the silence. Far away,
Gord thought he heard the mutterings of other soldiers, preoccupied with what
had become their everyday lives. Dalach removed his hat and placed it on the
hook. In the low light, he looked ten times older. The break in his nose made
an odd shadow against his cheek.

“Dawn tomorrow,” he said.

“No.”

“There's no way out of it, Private Tracy,” Dalach said
firmly. “You and Giles have a duty to your country. I expect you to fulfill
it.”

“But why?” Gord said, reality hitting him square in the
stomach. “What about a trial? Isn't that how things work?” When Dalach didn't
answer him, Gord grabbed him by the front of his coat and shook him. “I said,
what about a trial! I thought you were his closest friend! What are you doing
here, telling us that we have to shoot him as if he’s a traitor when you could be saving his life?”

Ayden grabbed Gord around the middle and dragged him away.
“Giles stop! There's nothing we can do. They've already decided.”

Gord sagged in Ayden's arms. Dalach reached into an inner
pocket of his coat and brought out a bottle, which he set down heavily on the
table. “Sit down, Giles,” he said.

Ayden relaxed his grip. Gord did not so much sit as fall. “I
won't do it,” he said.

“You will do it or you'll be against the wall as well.”

There was a cup in front of him. He didn't touch it. Alcohol
was not a cure-all for their troubles. His mother had the bruises to prove it.
Gord looked up from behind his arms. Dalach was handsome enough to be the Devil.

“Hate me if you want. You're young, don't think I haven't
noticed. You will learn, eventually, that there are just some things we can't
stop.”

“What about mercy?”

“Not here.” Dalach paused, then added, “I'm sorry.” He
turned and left. As soon as he was gone, Ayden picked up the cup and downed it
in one go.

“Why did you join up?” he asked out of the blue.

Gord shrugged. “I didn't have a job besides helping out my
father. And since I already knew how to shoot...” He shrugged again,
helplessly. “What about you?”

“I joined because there was nothing left for me at home.”
Ayden lit a cigarette. The match flared in the dark. “Also, I thought we would
be shooting Germans, not our friends.” He laughed bitterly. “This whole goddamn
war is a farce.”

“You must have had something once,” Gord mumbled. “What did
you lose?” As he asked, he ran his thumbnail over the skin of his wrist. Ayden
looked at him from underneath his heavy eyebrows.

“There was a girl,” he said, dream-like. “Beautiful but...” he tapped an ear, a wry
smirk on his lips, “Deaf.” Smoke poured from his mouth and nose like a dragon's
breath. “The other children liked to make fun of her. Called her ‘Dumb Sally’.
And she'd just smile because she believed in loving sinners and never had to
hear the nasty things they said. I used to look after her.”

Ayden dropped his head. The cigarette tapped against his
fingers, raining ash. “I might have married her, but she died.”

“How?” Gord asked, daring to break his silence.

Ayden's gaze grew distant. “Drowned. She was out in a boat
alone and she didn't know how to swim or even scream for help.” The cigarette
trembled. “It was summer and hardly dark when they found her. They brought her
home wrapped in blankets. Have you ever seen a drowned body, Gord?”

Gord shook his head.

“They're bloated and… and blue at the lips and she just
leaked water everywhere and I smelled the lake for an hour afterward.” He put
his head in his hands. Gord wanted to say something, but nothing would fit in
the space without chafing.

Ayden sat up slowly. “People started talking after that.
They said that a girl like that wouldn't have a place in the world, even with a
husband.” His voice dripped with venom. “Of course, it was terrible that the
angels called for her so soon, but it was probably a mercy, in the end. God
works in mysterious ways.”

Gord traced a knot in the surface of the table. Like throwing a kitten into a weighted sack,
he thought, and nearly vomited in his mouth. A memory floated to the surface of
his mind, pulled free from the muck of remembrances.

There was a dog. It had belonged to a shepherd and up until
that day in summer, it was as gentle as the beasts it herded. Then something
went wrong. It became sick, started foaming at the mouth, started snapping at
its owner. Not long after that, it came into the village. Gord remembered the
people’s fear. They came to him, because he was the best shot.

“Gord,” Ayden said, interrupting the boy’s thoughts. “Out
here, mercy is a bullet in the head. But murder is a crime and a crime is
shooting an innocent man. They're not putting Connor out of his misery, they're
kicking him in the arse through the gates of Hell.”

Gord let those words settle, then reached across the table
for the bottle, only to have Ayden smack his hand away.

“Don't,” he said. “You’ll drink yourself to death. I know
your game.” Gord may have imagined it, but he thought Ayden gave the scratch
marks on his wrist a pointed glance.

Gord withdrew. Looking at Ayden now, he was less apart than
before, but cracked and nearly broken.

I'm cracked all over,
Gord realized with horror. Who knows how
long I have until I break?

The dawn came, grey and cold just like its predecessors.
Even in his coat, Gord shivered. Ayden was on his fourth cigarette. He'd woken
up very early and wouldn't stop pacing. Gord hadn't been able to sleep after
that so he tried to write to Angelica again. He'd been unable to put the pen to
paper.

“One of us will have a blank,” Ayden explained, breath and
smoke mingling in one puff.

“Why?” Gord asked. His mind had been floating away down the
village road to the dog.

“So that we can each pretend we haven't killed him.”

There were two other young men with them. They didn't speak,
merely huddled with their collars turned up. Cold pressed down on the
courtyard. Gord wiped at his nose and mouth. He was going to be sick. Perhaps he
could be excused.

From the building behind them, an officer emerged with
Connor. The last Ayden and Gord seen of him had been his back. Now, they could
see the dark hollows in his cheeks, the blond hair stuck to his forehead. They
couldn't see his eyes. He was already blindfolded.

He walked with guides — almost proudly — to the wall. He
didn't speak. Gord's hands trembled on the gun. What was he doing? This was
Connor. The one who said he had promise, the one who had a daughter he'd only
seen in a picture, the one who somehow smiled even when being drowned by his
fears.

“Ready!”

Ayden lifted the gun. Gord wondered if his mind was
elsewhere too, perhaps by the lake, watching as a boat turned over on the quiet
waters. Gord had traveled back to the road. Dust was rising. Instead of the
dog, however, Connor stood there, wearing a smile that reached his eyes. The
vision blurred.

“Aim!”

Wasn't this the whole point of the army? For once, the butt
of a rifle felt out of place against Gord's shoulder. The cold was gone,
replaced by blistering heat. He thought he smelled lake water. Connor didn't
tremble. He remained standing calmly, as if it were any other day. Ayden's face
was like stone. Gord's fingers curled around the trigger.

There will be other
bullets, not just yours. Who's to say you don't have the blank cartridge?

“Fire!”

Because Ayden wouldn't get out of bed, Gord wandered outside
the barracks and straight into Dalach, who was sat in the mud and smoking. The
lieutenant looked up at him and a smile appeared, attempting to be bright, yet
weighed down.

“Good, wouldn't expect you to.” Dalach took a drag and blew
out, his throat relaxing. Gord wondered if it was really proper to see a
commanding officer in this state. His thumbnail bit into his wrist, a tiny bit
of pain as penance.

“I expect the worst is still to come, sir?” Gord said,
watching as a line of red rose up on his flesh. He noticed Dalach staring up at
him, brow furrowed. Gord jammed his hands in his pockets. Dalach snapped out of
it.

An answer flew into Gord's mouth: Well sir, I'm much more afraid of being stood up against the wall and
getting shot by my best mates for “cowardice” so no, I'm not afraid of some
Germans with guns and mustard gas. He choked it down and went with a much
shorter, “No, sir.”

Dalach laughed. “You might as well accept the fact that
we're all scared. Bravery comes from charging in even when you're frightened.”
It was amazing: upbeat, even when he was lying in a heap in the mud. “Do you
want to hear the story of how I broke my nose?”

“I've heard it before.”

“Not the real one.”

“What's the real one?”

Dalach opened his mouth to speak when a much louder, more
commanding voice shouted, “McReynolds! Lieutenant McReynolds!”

Quick as a flash, Dalach was on his feet, dropping the
cigarette in a puddle, where it hissed and threw up a stream of smoke. “Just a
moment sir!” Quieter, he added, “Giles, listen to me carefully now because I
can only say it once: Connor would hold no grudge against you. I told you to do
it, it falls on me.” He clapped Gord on the shoulder and turned to go.

“But what about you?” Gord asked.

Dalach shrugged. “I'm the biggest sinner of them all, Giles.
What's one more black mark to me?”

As he turned the corner, Gord pressed down harder on his
wrist. He had to write to Angelica. This might be his last chance. Instead, he
stared at the blank paper, listening to Ayden trying not to sob.

“Going over the top” was really all Gord needed to know.
There were “plans” but he didn't concern himself with them. All that mattered
was staying alive. Ayden was once again apart and untouchable, gazing at the
world half lidded. Dalach was full of energy.

Gord sighed. Nothing could possibly reach through the murk
above. In any case, he watched Dalach walk up and down the line with aplomb.
How could he be so happy?

Then it was time. Gord's stomach churned. It was harder to
propel himself forward this time, harder to climb and face No Man's Land.
Someone pushed him, none too gently, toward the top. His fingers dug into the
dirt. He hauled himself out and began to run. Chaos exploded around them.

Gord's ears rang. He recalled climbing into the bell tower
of the village church and being scared to death by the noise. This was so much
worse. Would he ever hear again? With great effort, he crawled through the fog,
rubbing dirt and dust from his eyes with the edge of his equally filthy sleeve.
Mud squelched beneath his palms and knees.

The sharp sound of machine gunfire split the ringing in two.
Something — a gunshot? A mine? — exploded in the dirt to his left like a
fountain. Gord was thrown back over a line of barbed wire into a puddle. He bit
his tongue. The iron taste of blood flooded his mouth.

“Giles! Giles!”

Who was that? Gord lifted his head from the foul tasting
water and spit it out. The voice continued shouting for him, pushing against
the pillows in his ears. For a brief moment, he saw his hands clearly: dirt
caked under the fingernails, cracks in the knuckles, bleeding red.

Someone grabbed his shoulders and hauled him back. The
puddle erupted with bullets. He and his savior rolled away down a slope.
Someone was yelling for a retreat. Like a horse without its blinders, Gord thrashed,
unable to free himself from the weight that held him to the ground.

“Stay down! They're firing!” A face appeared in the chaos.
Ayden shook him. “I'm trying to keep you alive, you bastard! Stay down!”

Gord fell back, his chest heaving. Ayden's head whipped back
and forth. The gunfire hadn't ceased, but Ayden was sensing something that was
slipping past Gord. He took Gord's shoulders once more and picked him up. “Run!
Back to the trench!” he commanded.

They raced over the uneven ground. The earth was torn to
pieces; the air was ripped to shreds with bullets. Ayden pushed against Gord's
back with shouts of, “Move, you berk!” Soldiers poured like ants past them and
into the trench. Then Dalach was running beside them, his legs and arms
pumping.

“Boys!” he shouted over the relentless noise. “Hurry!” He
grasped the backs of their shirts and tossed them, as a bartender tosses out
drunks, towards the trench. Ayden slid down the side, landing with a loud
splash in the bog. He reached up, making to pull Gord after him.

But Gord paused. He didn't know what made him turn his head
at that instant. Perhaps a lifetime of being followed by friends, waiting for
them to run into the embrace of a kitchen door, had prompted him to look over
his shoulder. Just to know that they were there.

Dalach fell. He simply dropped. The world fell away. There
were two islands: one, the trench and Ayden; the other, Dalach and No Man's
Land. Gord turned. He stepped. He took another. He swam through the scent of death.
Behind him, he heard Ayden swearing.

Gord knelt. He moved his gun on his shoulder. You're smaller, he thought, but you can still lift him. He pushed
his arms beneath Dalach, hefting him onto his back, one limp arm over, a live
one under. Gord's heels sank into the mud. He choked. It was only a yard. One
yard. Dalach slipped from his back into the dirt. It was miles away.

“You damn fool,” Ayden rasped, pulling Gord up by his
shirtfront. Ayden had come back for him. He dragged Gord, shaking him, and
threw him to the bottom of the trench. The cold sank into Gord's skin. He
gasped like a dying fish. “He's dead. There's nothing we can do for him.”

Gord lay in the bog, unmoving. Ayden stood above him,
breathing hard and noisily. Then he dropped down beside Gord with his knees up
and head back. A shaft of sunlight broke through the brown and grey sky. Ayden
fumbled at the strap for his helmet, yanked it off his head and threw it at the
wall of the trench. He let out the loudest curse that Gord had ever heard. It
roared into the rest of the noise, and yet somehow rang in the broken quiet.

When he’d finished, Ayden put a hand on Gord's arm and shook
him. “Get up,” he said, his voice shaking. “Get up, now. Please don't stay down
there.” Gord wanted to move, but he felt welded to the ground. Ayden's mouth
opened and closed, then snapped shut. Without a word, he lifted Gord out of the
water and threw him over his shoulder. He trudged down the line, Gord on his
back. Neither spoke.

The nurse who tended to them was young, probably just out of
finishing school. She was the kind of starched and pressed young lady who wouldn’t
take nonsense from anyone. She didn’t flinch, even when she discovered a horrid
slice through Gord's arm that had been made by the barbed wire.

Ayden was the one dithering. He nearly broke his leg flying
down into the trench like that, but he still paced about and snapped at anyone
who told him to sit down. After she finished with Gord, the nurse allowed them
to leave. They had to make room for the truly wounded.

Once in the barracks, Gord was forced to lie down. Something
had cracked in that moment between them. Ayden couldn't place a wall between
them like before. Instead, he made sure that Gord drank and wiped at his
forehead and snapped at him whenever he made to scrape at his wrist.

Gord wanted to tease him for acting like a nursemaid, but
his voice was gone. He drifted into sleep, only to be woken up again by the
noise in his head. Ayden sat at the table, smoking again. Gord lifted his head.
“I think he wanted to die.”

Ayden half turned in his seat. “What do you mean?”

“I think that Dalach wanted to die. Before he...he told me
that it was all on him.” There was no comment. Gord kept talking, his voice
hoarse. “I think...he was upset. He was so excited when he heard we were going
over.”

“That much was clear,” Ayden said. He rubbed his eyes. “Have
you ever wondered what a man like him would do after this war?”

I am so tired. I am
tired of sitting at this desk and writing you pretty lies. No matter how
comforting they might seem, I know that you cannot honestly believe them to be
the truth.

Today, a good friend
died. His name was Dalach McReynolds and he was shot in the head. Honestly, I
had thought that would be the end of anyone but him. Fate is cruel and strange.

A minister once spoke
to us of Hell, Angelica. I want you to know that this is Hell. Hell is not fire and brimstone and the Devil is not some
unholy monster. Satan is rats. Hell is wet and full of mustard gas. The Devil
lives under the skin of all men. And here, all the men are dead. The only difference between us and Dalach's
corpse is that he is a little deader than the rest of us.

I have never told you,
for it would have upset you, but one of the first things I saw here was a young
man, not much older than me, burned and blistered by mustard gas. Sometimes,
when it is very quiet, I imagine his screams of agony. He survived, but that
pain lives on in his disfigured face. It would have been easier if he had been
shot.

They said that war
would make us men, but all I see are ghosts. We walk, we talk, we wade through
mud and yet all of us are prisoners inside our bodies. It's to the point that
there is a service revolver at my left hand and I have half a mind to use it.

However, I won't. I
made a promise to marry you and I have no intention of breaking it. To throw
something like that away so flippantly would be a crime.

I am still frightened.
I am frightened every waking minute. Dalach was a lucky one. He bore the
shrapnel in his skull without a cry so that I and Private Tracy might reach
safety. He died, as they say, a hero, not as a coward with a rope around his
neck. I can't help but imagine that he wanted to die by the sword. Perhaps the
Kaiser's himself.

If I die, I would like
it to be fast, like his was, so that I never know. That is what constitutes
mercy here. Shooting myself in the head will not do. I'm too scared to pull the
trigger.

I am, however, cruel
enough to shoot a man who was my friend. I am cruel enough to obey orders and
stand beside my fellows as they placed a blindfold on Connor. I am cruel enough
to imagine that it was like shooting a dog. I am foolish enough to think they
gave me the blank cartridge. I think we have grown so accustomed to war that we
forget we are professional murderers. Our duty is to kill. To think that we had
to shoot a friend to realize how callous, and yet how fragile we are.

There is blood on our
hands. We tried to protect him and we drove a knife through his back. And what
did he do? Accept it.

Connor was brave. He
was not a coward. He knew from childhood that he would be in the army. His wife
back home is going to receive a missive soon, informing her that he has
perished in France, a half-truth as they will exclude the fact that he was
executed. She will be comforted by the thought that he died fighting. I cannot
blame her fancy, but it does nothing to relieve my bitterness.

I fear that when I
return to you, Angelica, I'll make a poor husband. I have woken from nightmares
that threaten to paralyze me. Private Tracy treats me as if I'm at Death's
door.

If I return at all, I
won't be the same. I don't know if I will become the next body up against the
wall, or if I shall die in battle, or if I will be like that boy, burned beyond
recognition. Our minds all slip down that slope, into “cowardice.” The only
thing that keeps us from giving in is the knowledge that we'll be executed.

We've driven each
other into the pit. I feel a hundred years old.

You will never read
this, Angelica. They will not allow it. So, into the fire it goes.

There are just some
things that cannot be shared from the front.

Affectionately,
perhaps for the last time,

Private Gord Giles

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MaximillianDelirium

savageamelia22:
Thus is a great book. You write like there's no tomorrow and it's amazing. When my cousin(AProudWeeb) had wattpad i took her phone and came upon one of your stories. It was called the bad boy and the Cheerleader. It was awesome. So i got wattpad on my phone and started writing. Then Inkitt. I lov...

Alicia Cameron:
A rich business CEO (Tobias) has never had a girlfriend because he doesn't date, instantly promotes one of his fairly new employees (Ruby) to be his PA for no real reason other than her education. Tobias has a reputation, and is known to be cold, but Ruby breaks through his wall and gets to know ...

Adebola Olabenjo:
I'm not really into reading as it bores me out but when I came across this great book, i knew i could manage to read it.The characters are indeed very interesting and I like the twin characters especially.The description is quite captivating and the book is full of drama, romance, jealousy and go...

BelovedMarionette:
A definite must read. I was riding the emotional rollercoaster with each of the characters through the entire first and second story and by the end of it all I was very happy with the outcome. I would have loved some background plot expansion and closure on certain things that happened between sp...

Je13ss:
Where do I even begin? This book is amazing! It has had the ability to keep me absolutely glued to my phone wanting to finish it to the very last word of the very last chapter. I'm excited for the next update. Ecstatic! The author has done a superb job in truly describing the characters and allow...

Silently_Writing:
This was my first book read on this site, and I'm so happy it was! I loved this from beginning to end. There were so many little details added in the greatest places, suspense and mystery at unexpected times, and a wonderful story built and concluded.

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Inkitt is the world’s first reader-powered book publisher, offering an online community for talented authors and book lovers. Write captivating stories, read enchanting novels, and we’ll publish the books you love the most based on crowd wisdom.